Douglas Coupland

"Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them."

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad."

"Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being."

"Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life."

"Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence."

"Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room."

"I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of color, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country."

"I think that to acknowledge a new generation is to acknowledge some degree of obsolescence in yourself, and that is very hard to do and often comes with undeniable anger."

"I was at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver for four years, and I loved it."

"If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure."

"If God drives a car, He'd drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, with oxblood leather upholstery and an opera window."

"If human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween."

"It's very strange that most people don't care if their knowledge of their family history only goes back three generations."

"Men won't read any email from a woman that's over 200 words long."

"People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own."

"Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you."

"Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure."

"The capacity for not feeling lonely can carry a very real price, that of feeling nothing at all."

"The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself."

"Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people."